Huge thanks to Ron at Pen Chalet for sending me a Monteverde Invincia Stealth over for review. I have been eyeing this pen for quite some time now. The Invincia is a larger, heavier pen with some great qualities about it. I’m happy to finally have one in my collection, read on to see how the Invincia Stealth held up!

Appearance & Packaging:

The Invincia comes in a basic green box. No frills, but it makes for a nice gift presentation. The pen itself is sleek and nicely tapered to fit comfortably in hand. The pen is high gloss, and all black making for a really sharp looking pen. The clip design is a bit funky and doesn’t quite match the overall design of the pen. The one thing I really dislike about the Invincia is the branding on the pen. The logo fonts are very corny and the white screening makes them very apparent. It stands out way too much and definitely detracts from the overall stealthiness of the pen. The pen itself is nice looking, with ribbed accents on the tail and cap. The nib has a cool design and it really stands out. The nib is very large and doesn’t leave anyone guessing whether it is a fountain pen or not. It’s definitely different from the other offerings out there.

Nib Performance & Filling System:

Out of the box, the broad nib was admittedly not great. It was dry and scratchy and overall unpleasant to write with. I opened up the tines a bit to increase ink flow, made sure everything was aligned and hit the tipping with some micro mesh and everything was writing nice, wet and smooth – like a broad nib should be. It definitely writes much better now, but with the beginner price point it may turn off people who are new to fountain pens. There’s always the possibility that I got a bum nib as well. I don’t think the factory broad nib being less-than-great is unique to Monteverde though. I’ve had less than pleasurable experiences with Kaweco B and BB nibs as well.

I mentioned earlier in the review how the nib design was unique. The mountain design is stamped into the pen and the branding on the nib is significantly more classy than that on the cap band. The feed has no trouble keeping up with the broad nib, making the converter empty rather quickly. I’m curious to see how the other Monteverde nibs perform as well. For it’s $68 price tag, the pen performs well, but keep in mind the broad nib I received needed some tweaking.

Feel:

The Invincia is a large, heavy pen. 6.35″ posted and 40g gives it a very substantial feel in hand. The grip is a bit slim for a pen of its size and doesn’t quite hold up to the rest of the pen. I’d prefer a fatter grip, but that may be personal preference. The pen isn’t uncomfortable to write with at all though. I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of fatigue while writing the handwritten portion of the review (which I did straight through, no breaks). The step from the barrel to grip is substantial. It doesn’t affect my grip, but those who choke up on the pen may find the threads intrusive.

Longer writing sessions are great and I’m especially happy with how secure and deep the cap posts. I prefer to write with a posted pen and the Invincia has one of the better posting caps I’ve seen. The fit and finish on the pen are great as well. The clip seems to be secure and sturdy. I can definitely see clipping it onto the pocket of my jeans and not having any worries of it disappearing.

Pros:

Great balance

Cap posts well

Good price point

Cons:

Logo design

Broad nib was finicky out of the box

Conclusion:

The Invincia Stealth is a solid feeling pen that definitely stands out in the $65 price range. Fit and finish are on point, but I’m not 100% keen on some design points (clip shape and logo color/font). The grip may be a bit too thin for some, but overall I’m quite happy with the pen.

Disclaimer: This pen was provided to me as a review unit, free of charge, by Pen Chalet. I was not compensated for this review, and this did not have any effect on my thoughts and opinions about the pen. Thank you for reading!

8 thoughts on “Monteverde Invincia Stealth Fountain Pen Review”

Great review! I have read many times about Monteverde nibs being finicky and scratchy right out of the box. I am not sure if flushing the pen immediately after receiving it would solve the issue? However I always flush my pens before their first inking. The nib issues that i have read a lot about is why I have been very hesitant to purchase another Monteverde. As well as the fact that currently, I am not experienced enough to mess with tines and such to help make a pen write smoother or the ink flow better. I prefer a pen that writes perfect right out of the box (after a flushing, that is).

I wonder about the nibs, too. I got an Intima, and the thing skipped all over the place. It was quite a disappointment. I tried micromesh and that improved it only slightly (I was afraid to go too far with it). Finally, I just bought a Goulet nib and switched out the nib, and now I am happy, thought I thought the black nib was cooler looking.

Nice review. I understand what you mean about the Monteverde lettering and logo, it’s put me off trying their stealth offerings even though I generally like stealth pens. Also heard things about middling QC on the nibs, but unfortunately that’s becoming standard at this price point.

You may share this website by any of the following means:
1. Using any of the share icons at the bottom of each page (Google Mail, Blogger, Twitter, Facebook, GoogleBuzz);
2. Providing a back-link or the URL of the content you wish to disseminate; and
3. You may quote extracts from the website with attribution to [YourURL]

For any other mode of sharing, please contact the author at the email below.
ed@edjelley.com

Commercial use and distribution of the contents of the website is not allowed without express and prior written consent of the author.